To begin the installation, insert the Openfiler disk into your CD/DVD-ROM drive and ensure your system is configured to boot off the CD/DVD-ROM drive. After the system POSTs, the installer boot prompt will come up. At this point, just hit the Enter key to proceed. After a few moments, the first screen of the installer will be presented. If at this point your screen happens to be garbled, it is likely that the installer has been unable to automatically detect your graphics subsystem hardware. You may restart the installation process in text-mode and proceed accordingly in that case. The first screen of the installer is depicted below. The next step is to click on the Next button to proceed with the installation.

After clicking the Next button, you will be taken to the Language Selection screen. Use the scroll bar on the right to scroll up and down and select your desired language for the duration of the installation process. Please note that at present, some screens are only available in English. Once you have selected your desired language, click the Next button to proceed to the next step.

This screen deals with keyboard layout selection. Use the scroll bar on the right to scroll up and down and select your desired keyboard layout from the list. Once you are satisfied with your selection, click the Next button to proceed.

Next comes the disk partitioning. Openfiler is designed to take up the first 6-8GB of space on the first disk it finds on the system by default. You can fine-tune the disk partitioning settings by selecting the Manually partition with Disk Druid checkbox option. We highly recommend manual disk partitioning as it ensures you will end up with a bootable system and with the correct partitioning scheme. Click the Next button once you have selected the correct radiobutton option.

Disk Setup

On the disk setup screen, if you have any existing partitions on the system, please delete them. DO NOT DELETE ANY EXISTING OPENFILER DATA PARTITIONS UNLESS YOU NO LONGER REQUIRE THE DATA ON THEM. To delete a partition, highlight it in the list of partitions and click the Delete button. You should now have a clean disk on which to create your partitions.

You need to create three partitions on the system in order to proceed with the installation:

1. /boot - this is where the kernel will reside and the system will boot from

2. swap - this is the swap partition for memory swapping to disk

3. / - this is the system root partition where all system applications and libraries will be installed

Create /boot Partition

Proceed by creating a boot partition. Click on the New button. You will be presented with a form with several fields and checkboxes. Enter the partition mount path "/boot" and the select the disk on with to create the partition. In the illustrated example, this disk is hda (the first IDE hard disk). Your setup will very likely be different as you may have several disks of different types. You should make sure that only the first disk is checked and no others. If you are installing on a SCSI-only system, this disk will be designated sda. If you are installing on a system that has both IDE and SCSI disks, please select hda if you intend to use the IDE disk as your boot drive.

The following is a list of all entries required to create the boot partition:

1. Mount Point: /boot

2. Filesystem Type: ext3

3. Allowable Drives: select one disk only. This should be the first IDE (hda) or first SCSI disk (sda)

4. Size(MB): 100 (this is the size in Megabytes, allocate 100MB by entering "100")

5. Additional Size Options: select Fixed Size radiobutton from the options.

6. Force to be a primary partition: checked (select this checkbox to force the partition to be created as a primary partition)

After configuration, your settings should resemble the following illustration:

Once you are satisfied with your entries, click the OK button to create the partition.

Create / (root) Partition

Proceed by creating a root partition. Click on the New button. You will be presented with the same form as previously when creating the boot partition. The details are identical to what was entered for the /boot partition except this time the Mount Point: should be / and the Size(MB): should be 4096.

Once you are satisfied with your entries, click the OK button to proceed.

Create Swap Partition

Proceed by creating a swap partition. Click on the New button. You will be presented with the same form as previously when creating the boot and root partitions. The details are identical to what was entered for the boot partition except this time the Mount Point: should swap. Use the drop down list to select a swap partition type. The Size(MB): of the partition should be at least 1024MB and need not exceed 2048MB.

Once you are satisfied with your entries, proceed by clicking the OK button to create the partition. You should now have a set of partitions ready for the Openfiler Operating System image to install to. Your disk layout should resemble the illustration below:

You have now completed the partitioning tasks of the installation process and should click Next to proceed to the next step.

The boot loader configuration determines which disk will contain the boot loader, and what type of boot loader to install. There are two options for the boot loader; GRUB and Lilo. The default boot loader is GRUB and should be suitable for the vast majority of installations. The default settings should be left as they are. No changes are required in this section unless you know what you are doing.

Proceed to the next stage of the installation process by clicking Next.

In this section you will configure network devices, system hostname and DNS parameters. You will need to configure at least one network interface card in order to access the Openfiler web interface and to serve data to clients on a network. In the unlikely event that you will be using DHCP to configure the network address, you can simply click Next and proceed to the next stage of the installation process.

If on the other hand you wish to define a specific IP address and hostname, click the Edit button at the top right corner of the screen in the Network Devices section. Network interface devices are designated ethX where X is a number starting at 0. The first network interface device is therefore eth0. If you have more than one network interface device, they will all be listed in the Network Devices section.

When you click the Edit button, a new form will popup for you to configure the network device in question. As you do not wish to use DHCP for this interface, uncheck the Configure Using DHCP checkbox. This will then allow you to enter a network IP address and Netmask in the appropriate form fields. Enter your desired settings and click OK to proceed.

Once you have configured a network IP address, you may now enter a hostname for the system. The default hostname localhost.localdomain is not suitable and you will need to enter a proper hostname for the system. This will be used later when you configure the system to participate on your network either as an Active Directory / Windows NT PDC client or as an LDAP domain member server. You will also, at this point, need to configure gateway IP address and DNS server IP addresses. To complete this task you will need the following information:

The following illustration shows an example where a hostname has been assigned, and gateway IP, primary and secondary DNS information has also been entered.

Once you are satisfied with your entries, please proceed by clicking the Next button.

There is a default firewall configuration screen. You do not need to make any changes on this screen. You may simply click Next to proceed with the installation to the next stage.

This section of the installer will let you configure what languages to install on the system. You can use the scroll bar on the right to scroll through the available options. You are allowed to select more than one language to install. Once you have selected your desired languages to install on the system, use the dropdown list at the top of the screen to select the default system language.

Proceed to the next stage of the installer by clicking Next.

Set the default system time zone. You can achieve this by following the instructions on the left side of the screen. If your system BIOS has been configured to use UTC, check the UTC checkbox at the bottom of the screen and click Next to proceed.

You need to configure a root password for the system. The root password is the superuser administrator password. With the root account, you can log into the system to perform any administrative tasks that are not offered via the web interface. Select a suitable password and enter it twice in the provided textboxes. When you are satisfied with your entries, click Next to proceed with the installation process.

The package installation defaults screen lets you define the set of packages that will be installed on the system. The default set of packages to get a fully working system are already configured for installation. You can simply click Next to proceed to the next section. Don't make any changes to the package selection unless you know what you are doing.

This screen informs you that installation configuration has been completed and the installer is awaiting your input to start the installation process which will format disks, copy data to the system and configure system parameters such as setting up the boot loader and adding system users. Click Next if you are satisfied with the entries you have made in the previous screens.

Once you have clicked Next in the preceding section, the installer will begin the installation process. The following screenshots depict what happens at this point.

Once the installation has completed, you will be presented with a congratulatory message. At this point you simply need to click the Reboot button to finish the installer and boot into the installed Openfiler system.

Once the system boots up, start configuring Openfiler by pointing your browser at the host name or IP address of the Openfiler system. The interface is mounted on https port 446. e.g.. http://homer.the-simpsons.com:446.

You can learn how to manage the Openfiler system by browsing the administrator guide online which can be found here.